


Firesmoke

by ThatDamnKennedyKid



Series: The Winged Jedi [18]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Clone Wars (2003) - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Female Obi-Wan Kenobi, Wingfic, Wings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-05 07:28:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16806166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatDamnKennedyKid/pseuds/ThatDamnKennedyKid
Summary: It had only been a matter of time, really, before they'd come face to face. Now, it seemed the end she feared might be inevitable.





	Firesmoke

The ride back to up to the _Negotiator_ , while dogged by explosions and blaster fire, was it quiet. Kanan watched the clones anxiously, waiting to see which of them would break the silence. None of them did. All with helmets on, it was hard to read what they were thinking. Even their Force projections were low. 

Kenobi, however, looked eerily stoic, even for her. Her eyes were focused off in the distance, seeing something else. She didn't speak of the events, didn't admit to anything in either her voice or her stance. Her aura was rumbling, malcontent, but that was hardly inconceivable. 

He focused on her, trying to wheedle his way into the edge of her thoughts, to catch a glimpse of her mind. Her eyes cut to his and locked. Suddenly, he was inside her head, enveloped in a tangle of white and black threads. The white was humming, singing some distant song in a forgotten or little spoken language, while the black screamed and clawed, writhing and violent. 

_Anakin is mine! He's mine! You can't have him ever again!_ The black tendrils snapped out, reaching for him before a faintly green hand blocked it. 

_And Obi-Wan is mine._ The white tendrils trilled back, flaring vibrantly. _She is the light in Skywalker that you cannot darken. Test me, brother, and you will find out which of us possesses the stronger conviction._

A blue hand reached out for the red one that emerged, but the black mass hissed furiously and swallowed the red hand down again, forcing it back. It shrieked and lashed out, but the whiteness simply absorbed and disintegrated the violent tendrils. 

He tried to pull back from it, to get away from this duel. Kenobi's presence surrounded him and guided him to something else, a memory. 

_She was in a sparse room, considering. Anakin had gotten married behind her back on Naboo. She had known - she had seen. She held the paperwork in her hands. She would wait, she decided, to see if Anakin would tell her. To even broach the subject of Order reform and change._

_She remembered Satine, the desperate way they'd loved and the cold way she'd been turned out of Mandalore. She remembered the pity in Master Jinn's eyes as she boarded the craft, entirely covered save her head and some of her fingers. She didn't want Anakin to share in her despair, to know the full depth of what she'd lost._

_If she could save him, she would do anything it took._

He struggled, barely able to feel his own body. "No, stop! Stop! Let me go!"

Abruptly, he could see through his own eyes, the clones all staring at him in a dismay. They were in space, no longer pursued. 

_I still will._ She whispered in his mind, pulling back entirely and averting her eyes. 

He vowed right there and then to never enter any of her spaces unless explicitly invited. 

* * *

"What happened down there?" Ahsoka asked once they were on board the starcruiser. 

"Anakin." Kenobi replied simply, walking off into the bowels of the ship. Cody followed her. Rex, for his part, sighed heavily. 

"Palpatine was there too, kid." He said, patting her shoulder. 

"Oh." Ahsoka watched her eldest friend leave, her entire body caught somewhere between stiff with tension and slumped in defeat. 

"What does that mean?" Ezra asked. 

Ahsoka looked down at him sadly. "It means we're in for a real fight."

"A real fight?" Ezra cocked his head. "Then what have we been doing?"

She pet his hair. "I mean, we're going to escalate into open war now."

Rex looked out over the hangar, at his brothers, laughing and joking and milling about. He wondered how many of them had survived their temporal mishap only to die out in the field now. Was he going to have to do the unthinkable and have to console Waxer should Boil die? Or hold Fives if Echo perished? What would he do if Cody, of all people, died? For himself and for his General - the woman who would abandon her apprentice to save a replaceable man? What would become of this small, tightly-knit unit of individuals should a mobile turret surprise them and wipe out half?

Ezra touched his hand, his eyes wide and brimming with tears. 

"Kiddo?" He asked.

"You're projecting." The boy said, twisting their fingers together. 

He immediately felt awful. It'd been years since he'd had to control his errant thoughts. Ahsoka only looked away politely, her training better allowing her to ignore escaping thoughts from all the clones. 

"Do you really feel that way?"

He picked the kid up, holding him close. "No. These are the best of the 212th. But I'm a soldier - I have to think of every outcome, even ones I don't think are likely."

"You seemed pretty sure." Ezra murmured. 

"No one's ever sure." He admitted quietly. "No one knows what the future will bring. All I can do is speculate based on my experiences. But I'm still not sure those experiences are relevant, that they can help me predict."

"If you say so." He murmured, holding tightly. 

He hugged back, wishing for a brief moment Gregor was here. That crazy lunatic always knew the right words, what to say to calm a brother down. In reality, he was happy Gregor and Wolffe were back on Seelos. They didn't need any more heartbreak. He didn't know if they were capable of handling it. 

"I am. Commander Tano's probably thinking the same things."

Ahsoka met Ezra's gaze with a sad smile. "The Clone Wars taught me warfare, but this struggle is so much different. But sometimes, we fall back on what we know, use it to help us move forward. It's not always right, or helpful for that matter, but it became a part of us. Captain Rex's projections are . . . reflections of the world he knew, the war he was in."

"Was it really that bad?"

"Some times and places were better than others." He admitted. 

"And that's what we're trying to restore? A government that would allow that to happen?"

They both winced. They had no good answer. 

"Perhaps that's something you should ask General Kenobi." Rex said. "She would know better than I would."

Ezra frowned as he was let down. 

* * *

"Ahsoka told me about your conversation with her and Rex in the hangar after the mission."

Ezra looked up from the challenge toy he was fiddling with. Sawbones had given it to him to give his curious fingers something to do. "Oh yeah? What did she say?"

"She said you didn't understand the Republic. That you were under the impression it was a bad place."

"It was." He scowled down at the toy. "Rex hurts so much when he thinks about it. I can feel it across the compound."

Obi-Wan sat down next to him, her wings stretched out behind her in the most comfortable position she could achieve. She crossed her legs and clasped her hands together, considering her words. 

"The Republic was far from perfect." She began, glancing over to catch his eyes. "But that is the way of anything created by sentient hands. Things that hurt aren't inherently good or evil. The Republic was large and complex, filled with conflicting interests and ideas. The Senate that ran it was home to hundreds of diplomats who all needed the Republic to do different things for them. In that, and many other ways, the Jedi were the same."

Ezra met her gaze more fully. "What do you mean?"

She took a deep breath. "I have had a lot of time to consider why Darth Vader is who he is. He was very close to me once, my Padawan."

Ezra's mouth dropped. "Really?"

"Yes. And he was Ahsoka's master. He did not fit the mold of a Jedi, and he was shunned for it. Competing and conflicting interests are what launched the Jedi into the war as generals. Myself chief among them."

"But why are the Jedi bad like the Republic?"

She shook her head. "They're not. Consider it this way; you and I believe we should go to Naboo, but by different routes. We continue to argue, neither conceding. Then, when we get frustrated with each other, we go get people to agree with us to argue our choice with us. Say, for example, I get Cody and Rex while Waxer and Boil agree with you. We get good and heated about this, but then Helix says he thinks we should go a third way. This continues to spiral until all of the men on the ship have either agreed with another group, or have made a group of their own. We all want to return to Naboo, but are so caught up on the how that we end up going nowhere. Eventually, someone will offer a trade - perhaps they will give up their slotted desert to the second-largest group to get them to agree. Then, and only then, hours or possibly days after we should have gone, is an agreement reached. That is how the Senate operated, on every issue. And in a situation like that, it is difficult to accomplish everything. And in the end, compromise must be made."

"That doesn't sound very effective." Ezra murmured. 

"It's not." She agreed. "But it is the foundation of democracy. What is best for the whole doesn't necessarily mean it benefits everybody. The Jedi Order had much the same difficulty. My Padawan was not suited to embody the ideal Jedi, and as an outlier, he felt outcast and rejected. He was failed by the system meant to empower him. And I, his master and a Council member no less, was instrumental in that decline."

"You can't blame yourself for his decisions." Ezra retorted, suddenly vehement. 

"I don't claim responsibility for his actions. You're correct - they are his and his alone. But I am responsible for _him_. I forged him, shaped him while he was impressionable. I could have helped him, found him ways he could flourish within the structure of the Jedi. I could have made myself available to assist in the carrying of his burdens. But I did not. I failed him. I failed him much the same way my master failed me - difficult and distant, unable to stoop to my level to understand me. He only ever wished to be loved, to know that love was unconditional even when he had misstepped. I think he believed I loved him, but I don't think he believed it was unconditional."

"That's awful." Ezra leaned into her. "Maybe we shouldn't have a Jedi Order either."

She laughed, sombre. "Yes, you might be right. There was much that needed fixing, to adapt. But I also think that there is merit in those failed systems. There are successes to build upon, and failures to learn from. There's no such thing as wasted experience."

He nodded against her chest. "I guess."

She laid her hand on his head, stroking his hair. 

"Do you plan on saving him?"

"Hmm?"

"Darth Vader."

"Oh." She took a deep breath. "If I can. He means a lot to me. But I am not sacrificing lives to do so."

"And if he makes you choose?"

* * *

She stood with her arms crossed, facing out over the garden and lit by the moon. It is likely an image she's struck before - powerful and burdened, a warrior and a leader. 

"Kenobi?"

She turns just enough to glance at him. "Yes, Kanan?"

"Can I talk to you?"

"Of course." She turned more fully to face him, a negotiation tactic. 

"I wanted to . . . How did you do that? The visions."

"The Force is a mysterious entity you can learn plenty from." She cocked her head, blue eyes shining. "I pulled your aura into mine then projected. It's not easy and takes immense concentration."

"Seemed pretty easy for you."

"Because you were trying to get into my mind." She looked sharper suddenly, dangerous. "All I did was open the door."

"What you showed me couldn't possibly be what you were thinking about."

"No?" She turned to catch the moon again, her wings menacing as they blended into the shadow. "Anakin is not gone. He's lost. Ahsoka believes his fall is directly correlated to my disappearance. I think she's right. His faith wavered on Anastasie, I could feel it. If I am the leverage Palpatine has had over him, then I will reset the board."

"You're trying to negotiate for your Padawan?"

"He was a Knight, and a talented one." Her feathers rustled in a breeze and he almost jumped. "And one doesn't negotiate the release of a slave - they free them."

"And what, _pray tell_ , is Vader a slave to?"

"A notion and a promise." 

"Of what? Why all the riddles only when you talk to me?"

"Because you don't understand. You don't care because your mind is made up." She snapped, silencing him. She visibly relaxed her shoulders. "I love him. He deserves better, to be happy. He is not happy there. Everything and everyone he wants is here. Now, he knows I am too. Sidious doesn't know Anakin as well as he believes, has to reevaluate his plan now that I'm in the field of play."

"Sounds like negotiation to me."

"Both require strategy and making use of all tools at your disposal. But the difference between a battle plan and a negotiation is how deliberately you hand things over." She met his gaze. "I'm taking it all."

* * *

"It's tragic, don't you think?"

He stopped at the edge of the ring of light she stood in, the ruins around them letting in the natural daylight into what would have been a training pavilion. 

She was there, hand hovering just under her chin like she'd been thinking earlier. She was just as, if not more, beautiful than he remembered and the tight suffocation of the last twenty years broke away. Just breathing the dust in her presence was rejuvenating. 

"Something once so beautiful and symbolic, reduced to rubble." She glanced up at what used to be well-versed garden trellises, with overgrown vines taking back the fallen and jagged duracrete. 

"You're brave to come here."

"I know." She glanced over at him, but did not turn. "And you're brave to accept."

"How so? We're on Coruscant, the home and base of the Empire."

"Because you're alone with me on a leyline of the Force, unguarded."

He frowned. "So? I'm the Chosen One. What danger do you pose to me?"

"No danger." She said airly. "I'm not here to hurt you. In fact, only one person knows I'm gone."

"Then what are you here for?"

"We didn't get much of a chance to talk last time." She finally turned to face him. "I'd like to understand."

"Understand what? The distress your dying put me in?"

She shook her head. "I understand that we'll enough. Qui-Gon died on me too. I want to know what Sidious told you, what he promised."

"He promised to bring you back." He met her gaze, feeling laid bare. "That's all I wanted."

"And this Empire of yours? What purpose did that have?"

"They wouldn't help me find you." His voice got venomous. "They had to go."

"Even Padmé?"

He stiffened. 

"You threw away your marriage for him?"

" . . . You knew?"

"You're not as stealthy as you think."

He bristled. "How long?"

"I knew shortly after. Maybe a month or so?"

"And you let me stew, let me think you would be disappointed and ashamed?"

She blinked. "I thought that when you were comfortable, you would approach me with a 'hypothetical', a probe. Telling you I knew would frighten you. I had to have faith in your trust in me. I figured, especially after Mandalore, that you would let me in."

"How could I? You were in love once, but you don't know what it's like to be a married Jedi living in hiding."

She winced, gently touching a spot on her left ribs, just under her breast. Her voice was soft when she replied. 

"Can't I?"

"You loved Satine, I could tell by the way you looked at her, but you didn't-" He took in her crooked smile. "You did."

"I did." Her smile was nostalgic. "It wasn't as beautiful nor as legal as yours, but I did."

"Who?"

She shook her head, hand patting her ribs. "He's all mine."

"Why didn't you tell me? After all this rhetoric about my marriage-"

"Padmé was safe, and so we're you, if your relationship was discovered." She interrupted. "My husband is not free to continue with his life if I revealed it. It's not that I didn't trust you with the knowledge, it's more I didn't trust any other ears that might be around."

"Tell me now, then."

She shook her head. "Tonight, you are my enemy."

He reared back. "Is that what we are?"

"It's what we are, but not what we have to be."

"Obi-Wan . . . "

"You've gone somewhere I can't follow you, Ani." She said softly. "You have to come back to me."

"I can't. I owe him for bringing you back."

"He didn't." She stepped closer wings brushing the ground. "I came on my own, and I sought you out without him."

"You don't understand. He helped me. He was the only one who would help me."

"Ahsoka would have helped you. Padmé tried to. Rex would have. All the people who loved you and continue to love you, despite the pain."

He cringed away. 

"I do not wish to fight you, to see you come to harm. All I ask is you consider leaving this behind. Your home is far from here, and we hope for your return."

"Obi-Wan -" He went to step toward her, but it was as if some invisible force held him back. 

"Consider it, my dear one." She said, readying a jump. "I would love a skydancing partner again."

She took off in a blaze of sunlit flame, and it was as if his entire world went with her. 


End file.
